Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Review

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth released in Japan on March 12, 2015, for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4. Media.Vision developed it and Bandai Namco Entertainment published it, and it became the first Digimon Story entry released on home consoles. North America got it on February 2, 2016 — the first Digimon Story game released there since 2007’s Digimon World Dawn and Dusk, and the first to keep its original title.

That history matters, and so does the game. It is the best Digimon role-playing game in a long time, and it earns that on systems, not nostalgia.

Trailer, via Bandai Namco Entertainment America.

Takumi Aiba and the Kuremi Detective Agency

You play as either Takumi Aiba or Ami Aiba, amateur Japanese hackers. A stranger in a chat room hands them a Digimon Capture program, which lets them befriend the creatures living inside EDEN, a next-generation internet users can physically enter.

Then the game turns. After traveling to EDEN’s lowest levels, an entity called an Eater attacks and leaves Aiba half-digitized. Aiba can now move between the real world and the virtual one through terminals. Kyoko Kuremi, head of the Kuremi Detective Agency, recruits them into her cyber division.

The plot runs deeper than that setup suggests. Aiba investigates a hospital ward run by Kamishiro Enterprises, which owns and manages EDEN, and finds it full of “EDEN Syndrome” patients — users who fall into comas. Yuuko Kamishiro, daughter of the company’s former president, has a brother among them, a victim of a failed beta test eight years earlier that Kamishiro covered up.

From there: Digital Shifts across Tokyo, Akemi Suedou, the Eaters, King Drasil and the Royal Knights, and Rie, the current president of Kamishiro, who reveals herself as the Royal Knight Crusadermon.

249 Digimon and a Battle System Borrowed From Final Fantasy X

Combat is turn-based, played from a third person perspective, and it takes its conditional turn-based structure from Final Fantasy X. You pick Palmon, Terriermon or Hagurumon as a starting partner, then scan and capture more as you push into new areas.

The roster is the argument. Cyber Sleuth ships with 249 unique Digimon, seven of them DLC across the game’s life and two exclusive to the Western release. Hacker’s Memory adds 92 more, and the Complete Edition — the 2019 Switch and Windows port — bundles both for 341 total.

There is a New Game Plus mode that carries over every Digimon, non-key item, money, memory, sleuth rank, scan percentage and Digifarm progress. That is the correct call. A monster-collecting game lives on whether it respects the time you put in, and this one does.

Where Cyber Sleuth Stumbles

The game borrows heavily from Game Freak’s Pokémon and improves on a lot of those elements rather than merely copying them. Scanning and capturing Digimon feels like its own mechanic, not a reskin.

In this writer’s view, the pacing sags. The EDEN Syndrome investigation is the strongest thread, and the Digital Shift material around Tokyo keeps it moving. The Royal Knights material is the weakest stretch, and the back half leans on exposition where a tighter script would have staged the same information. That is a judgment about the writing, not something the game’s own materials claim.

The cast carries what the plotting sometimes drops. Kuremi is the anchor. Yuuko’s search for her brother gives the comas a face. Nokia Shiramine and Arata Sanada round out the group, and Arata’s investigation into the Digital Shifts drives the middle act.

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is a role-playing video game developed by Media.Vision and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment.

That is the plain description, and the game outgrows it.

The Verdict on Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth

Here is what actually matters, ranked:

1. The 249-Digimon roster and the scan-and-capture loop — this is the reason to play.
2. The EDEN Syndrome mystery, which gives the collecting a plot worth following.
3. New Game Plus and the Complete Edition’s 341 Digimon, which spare players the chore of rebuilding a collection from scratch.
4. The Royal Knights back half, which is the weakest stretch and the one most likely to lose you.

The published aggregate score is 7.9 out of 10 across nine outlets, per IGDB. That feels right. Cyber Sleuth is not a flawless game — the late-game exposition is a real cost — but it is the first Digimon Story title in years that understood what the series was for. It released on home consoles and did not waste the trip.

7.9 of 10.

Bandai Namco · Digimon RPG · Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth · game review · Media.Vision · Monster Collecting